Dior Born: The Man Behind Fashion's New Look
He was a prisoner of war for two years in Germany and came out with a desire to make elegant things for a world that had almost stopped believing in them. Christian Dior launched his fashion house in February 1947 with what critics called the New Look: long skirts, nipped waists, a silhouette that reversed wartime fabric rationing. Women cried in the shows. Men wrote outraged op-eds about frivolity. It didn't matter. Women wanted it. He died of a heart attack in Montecatini, Italy, in 1957 at fifty-two, a decade into a house that has now outlasted him by seventy years.
January 21, 1905
121 years ago
What Else Happened on January 21
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